Traditionally, ophthalmic devices, such as a hydrogel lens, an intraocular lens or a punctal plug, include corrective, cosmetic or therapeutic qualities. A contact lens, for example, may provide vision correcting functionality, cosmetic enhancement, and/or therapeutic effects. Each function is provided by a physical characteristic of the contact lens. For example, a refractive quality may provide a vision corrective function, a pigment may provide a cosmetic enhancement, and an active agent may provide a therapeutic functionality.
Ophthalmic lens manufacturing processes include, for example, sandwiching a monomer between back curve (upper) and front curve (lower) mold sections carried in a mold array. The monomer is polymerized, thus forming a lens, which is then removed from the mold sections and further treated in a hydration bath and packaged for consumer use. A more recently developed manufacturing process for manufacturing high quality customized ophthalmic lenses is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,905,594 to Widman, et al. which is assigned to the assignee of the present disclosure.
In order to reach greater design ranges and higher optical quality, currently, these and other manufacturing techniques are carried out by partially automated and semi-automated apparatus and processes with strict process controls and tight tolerances necessary for the production of high quality ophthalmic lenses. Evolving techniques employ different process controls seeking to improve or add a particular manufacturing step. Examples of newly developed methodologies include new ways of demolding the lens from the mold part, the application of binder layers to the mold parts, polymerization techniques, lens hydration techniques, metrology techniques, lens material development, and the such.
With new methods and lens components being developed, the complexity of troubleshooting the desired automated process controls is sometimes greater. In addition, because some faults may not be detected prior to the detection of a defective ophthalmic lens during quality control, fault identification and correction can often be subject to a time delay wasting production time and materials. As a result, while the aforementioned production processes have some efficacy in the production of soft contact lenses, they suffer a number of disadvantages which can hinder the development of a high speed automated production line capable of producing high quality ophthalmic lenses. Furthermore, with the increasing risk of these high quality ophthalmic lenses being counterfeited, it is desirous for the ophthalmic lens to include a communication system useful to provide information about the ophthalmic lens' production.
Therefore, there is a need for a communication system that can be incorporated in an ophthalmic lens and/or mold part during early stages of manufacturing and which can be useful to generate a unique identifier with correlated production information.